Monday, August 27, 2012

Gentrification and Nostalgia For What Is Lost

East Village Graffiti today

As a regular to New York City I have become accustomed to
hearing about gentrification and more worryingly for some, the yuppification of
various neighborhoods. Gentrification is a poisoned chalice. It makes certain
areas unquestionably more livable but in the process the essence is lost as
long-time residents and tenants are slowly pushed out due to higher rents.

Today virtually all the island of Manhattan has become
gentrified. A strong whiff of sterilization can be experienced in some of the
areas which were previously seriously dodgy. This is particularly the case in
The East Village and Lower East Side. Here there is to be found ruthless
property developers
more akin to other, wealthier parts of the city taking
advantage of the increasing desire of people to live in these areas. While
still having a particular charm and feel to them, they are completely different
to what they were twenty and certainly thirty years ago.

Lower East Side in the 1970's

In the late 70’s and early 80’s the East Village and Lower
East Side were virtually no go areas for many and most certainly for the
wealthy elite uptown, chambered in their ivory towers on Park Avenue and so
forth. However just like many no go areas in big cities it was a cheap place to
live. While they attracted the down and outs of society and riddled with social
hardships, many artists found a welcoming as in affordable place to live. After
a time in situations like this a critical mass is reached and the whole area
develops in to a flux of cross breeding of ideas and styles that attracts even
more artists. Whole, vibrant and at times, extremely influential scenes emerge.

This was certainly the case for this part of New York over
thirty years ago. From the run down tenements and ruins of the Lower East Side
that almost looked in parts like Berlin in May 1945 came the flourishings of
post-punk, new wave and most certainly no wave. This has all been recounted by
a recent documentary about the no wave film scene in the late 70’s and early
90’s by filmmaker Celine Dahnier’s wonderful and accessible documentary called
“Blank City” and the inspiration for me writing this article. Not only does it
contain a satisfying mix of conversations with influential members of that
movement but it creates oddly in this writer a nostalgia for what a vibrant and
inclusive place Manhattan specifically but New York as a whole was for artists
at that time. Nowadays one must pay an arm and a leg for a run down place in
the East Village that has staunchly refused to be eaten up by developers. Back
then a hundred dollars would have gotten you the same shack of a place but at least
it was financially accessible.

Gentrification is a universal and ongoing process with an
uncertain ending. Artists are slowly being pushed further and further away from
the centres of cities. Some will argue it is a good thing, that in time artists
will find a far away enclave from increasing rents and prices that have
bedeviled them in the past from being so close to centres. However it is at
times a somewhat symbiotic relationship between urban artists and the wealthy,
many that later bankrolled the artists who made great art, such as Jean Michel
Basquait in New York. But technology opens up other means of revenue and
communication. Nevertheless gentrification as we know it will continue. Areas
will lose some of their charm and vibrancy once that new giant condo gets built
in the area.